Homer's Odyssey 1.44-62
David’s performance text uses boldface for the syllables that are dynamically prominent according to the new theory of the Greek pitch accent. Digammas occasionally obtrude into history like Banquo’s ghost.
From ‘A literal impression of Homer’s Odyssea from someone who’s literally heard it’, by A. P. David:
And taking his place then the goddess—Owl-Eyes, Athena:
‘Our father Cronides, Commander-in-Chief,
Too right! That man met with an agreeable destruction;
So should any other fellow be destroyed, who would get up to that sort of thing;
But about my Odysseus … my heart breaks for the skilful one
Stuck with a bad card, the man who so far from friends suffers pain upon woe,
On an island with a current right round, where the navel is, of the sea.
The island is tree-laden, and a goddess lives in the house,
Daughter of Atlas Baleful-Mind, who has plumbed the depths
Of the entire sea, and holds the pillars all by himself,
Tall and great, which hold apart the earth and the sky.
It’s that one’s daughter holds back the wretched, sorrowing man,
Always with the soft and wheedling talk,
She charms him, so that he will forget Ithaca. But Odysseus,
Eager to make out just the hearth-smoke leaping up
From his mother land, longs to die a death. But none of that, eh? gets
The attention of your own heart, Olympian. Now wasn’t it Odysseus
By the Argive ships, gratified you executing sacrifices in the wide land
Of Troy? Why then so angered; why at odds with Odysseus, Zeus?’
Greek text hyperlinked to lexica via Perseus (perseus.tufts.edu):
τὸν δ᾽ ἠμείβετ᾽ ἔπειτα θεά, γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη:
‘ὦ πάτερ ἡμέτερε Κρονίδη, ὕπατε κρειόντων,
καὶ λίην κεῖνός γε ἐοικότι κεῖται ὀλέθρῳ:
ὡς ἀπόλοιτο καὶ ἄλλος, ὅτις τοιαῦτά γε ῥέζοι:
ἀλλά μοι ἀμφ᾽ Ὀδυσῆι δαΐφρονι δαίεται ἦτορ,
δυσμόρῳ, ὃς δὴ δηθὰ φίλων ἄπο πήματα πάσχει
νήσῳ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, ὅθι τ᾽ ὀμφαλός ἐστι θαλάσσης.
νῆσος δενδρήεσσα, θεὰ δ᾽ ἐν δώματα ναίει,
Ἄτλαντος θυγάτηρ ὀλοόφρονος, ὅς τε θαλάσσης
πάσης βένθεα οἶδεν, ἔχει δέ τε κίονας αὐτὸς
μακράς, αἳ γαῖάν τε καὶ οὐρανὸν ἀμφὶς ἔχουσιν.
τοῦ θυγάτηρ δύστηνον ὀδυρόμενον κατερύκει,
αἰεὶ δὲ μαλακοῖσι καὶ αἱμυλίοισι λόγοισιν
θέλγει, ὅπως Ἰθάκης ἐπιλήσεται: αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσεύς,
ἱέμενος καὶ καπνὸν ἀποθρῴσκοντα νοῆσαι
ἧς γαίης, θανέειν ἱμείρεται. οὐδέ νυ σοί περ
ἐντρέπεται φίλον ἦτορ, Ὀλύμπιε. οὔ νύ τ᾽ Ὀδυσσεὺς
Ἀργείων παρὰ νηυσὶ χαρίζετο ἱερὰ ῥέζων
Τροίῃ ἐν εὐρείῃ; τί νύ οἱ τόσον ὠδύσαο, Ζεῦ;’
Samuel Butler’s translation with certain names Hellenised:
Then Athena said, "Father, son of Cronus, King of kings, it served
Aegisthus right, and so it would any one else who does as he did;
but Aegisthus is neither here nor there; it is for Odysseus that my
heart bleeds, when I think of his sufferings in that lonely sea-girt
island, far away, poor man, from all his friends. It is an island
covered with forest, in the very middle of the sea, and a goddess
lives there, daughter of the magician Atlas, who looks after the bottom
of the ocean, and carries the great columns that keep heaven and earth
asunder. This daughter of Atlas has got hold of poor unhappy Odysseus,
and keeps trying by every kind of blandishment to make him forget
his home, so that he is tired of life, and thinks of nothing but how
he may once more see the smoke of his own chimneys. You, sir, take
no heed of this, and yet when Odysseus was before Troy did he not propitiate
you with many a burnt sacrifice? Why then should you keep on being
so angry with him?"